European Briefing

The European Employment Strategy:

existing research and remaining questions
Caroline de la Porte, European University Institute, Florence, Italy
Philippe Pochet*, Observatoire social européen, Brussels, Belgium

Introduction government, and interactions of political

actors which cross those levels (Marks et al.,
The European Employment Strategy (EES) has 1996). New modes of governance can be
sparked lively debates in political and aca- referred to as ‘the range of innovation and
demic circles. These have been particularly transformation that has been and continues to
pronounced since the EES was identified as occur in the instruments, methods, modes and
the flagship for the Open Method of Coordin- systems of governance in contemporary poli-
ation (OMC). The aim of this article is to ties and economies, and especially within the
review the blossoming academic literature on European Union (EU) and its member states
the EES. We begin by reviewing the strategy (both current and prospective)’. In contrast
itself, before assessing three broader debates with ‘traditional’ modes of governance, they
that have emerged in the literature on the EES: are ‘only marginally – if at all – based on legis-
policy learning, democracy and the European lation and/or rely on the self-regulation of
social model. In conclusion, we point to the private actors, the co-regulation of private and
eminently political nature of the strategy, public actors as well as the delegation of tasks
reflected in the absence of political consensus to new public actors (regulatory agencies) in
on an independent status for the OMC in the policy formulation’.1 The distinctiveness of
future constitution. this analytical approach is its focus on the
meso and micro levels of policy making.
There are numerous accounts of how the
The European Employment Strategy EES – as the precursor of the OMC – func-
tions as a process (de la Porte and Pochet,
In the literature on the EES and the OMC, the 2002; Goetschy, 1999, Jacobsson, 2001a;
dominant analytical approach is explicitly or 2001b; Szyszczak, 2000a; 2000b; Trubek and
implicitly situated in the multi-level gover- Mosher, 2001). Some were written prior to
nance literature. The starting point of this per- the coining of the OMC concept. In these
spective is that the world (and the European accounts, the process is described as being
Union) is increasingly complex (Kooiman, based on guidelines that provide a margin for
1993), and that traditional top-down regula- adaptation at national level, but which also
tory mechanisms are insufficient to adequately involve processes of benchmarking, multi-
deal with this complexity. What is required are lateral surveillance and peer review. Member
‘new modes of governance’ able to respond to states are encouraged to transpose specific
the challenges created by increased complex- policy objectives in the Employment Guide-
ity. The OMC is frequently characterized as a lines to national-level programmes in ways
‘new mode of governance’ in a multi-level which accord with their particular socio-
European Union which exhibits overlapping economic circumstances. To illustrate their
competencies assigned to multiple levels of efforts, member states submit a National

* Author to whom correspondence should be sent: Philippe Pochet, Observatoire social européen, rue Paul-
Emile Janson, 13, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. [email: pochet@ose.be]

Journal of European Social Policy 0958-9287; Vol 14(1): 71–78; 039879 Copyright © 2004 SAGE Publications, London,
Thousand Oaks and New Delhi, DOI: 10.117/0958928704039879
72 de la Porte and Pochet

Action Plan (NAP). The Commission and the the extent of the Commission’s influence as a
Labour and Social Affairs Council in turn norm entrepreneur.
synthesize the national reports and make an Aside from the dominant focus on process
annual assessment of the progress of individ- in a multi-level governance logic, analyses of
ual member states and the Union as a whole. specific aspects of the EES are sparse and
Since 1999, the Commission has issued mostly exploratory. It is worth examining
individual recommendations, to be endorsed these aspects in more detail, as it is arguably
by the Council, to the member states for cor- these which differentiate the EES and the
rective action.2 In this light, the Labour and OMC from pure intergovernmental bargain-
Social Affairs Council adapts the guidelines ing. These specificities include the indicators
and decides on new initiatives at Community and benchmarks that have increased in
level. This process is repeated on an annual number and in political status throughout the
basis (Adnett, 2001; de la Porte et al., 2001). lifetime of the strategy. The official peer
These accounts of the EES also provide review session on best practices that accompa-
details of the institutional set-up, where the nies each round of reporting has also not been
Employment Committee, which advises the analysed in detail. It is a two-day process,
Labour and Social Affairs Council, and whereby member states present their NAPs
the Commission are key players. These studies and respond to prepared critiques made by
most often point to the continuous shift in the other member states. The peer review pro-
balance of power between the member states, gramme on active labour market policies,
in an intergovernmental logic, and the Com- which is of a more voluntary nature than the
mission, in a supranational logic. However, peer review of the whole NAP, is also under-
these approaches are not used as fully-fledged analysed. Peer review in this context is sup-
explanatory frameworks. They focus on the posed to involve national experts seeking to
macro level, and are above all useful to explain respond to a specific and targeted problem
‘history-making moments such as treaty revi- that has successfully been combated elsewhere
sions or major crises’ (Rosamond, 2000: 106). through a particular initiative (Bisopoulos,
Some accounts suggest that although the forthcoming). However, a first assessment of
Council has the final veto point, the Commis- the peer review programme has concluded
sion plays a key role as a norm entrepreneur. As that the possibilities for policy or initiative
a norm entrepreneur, it would not only have transfer are limited, due to significant struc-
the capacity to set the agenda, but also the tural and practical differences between
capacity to influence the preferences of member member states. Such reviews have – at best –
states throughout the policy process (Schmidt, sparked national-level discussions on certain
2000). Through its role as the secretariat in the aspects of active labour market policies
Employment Committee, it is an important (http://peerreview.almp.org/pdf/evaluation-
actor in setting the agenda of the Committee’s report-10-01.pdf). In addition, the relation-
meetings. It has been argued that it has signifi- ship between the EES and the European Social
cant capacity to orient debates, to propose indi- Fund – which, although theoretically linked,
cators and benchmarks, to advance new ideas, in practice follow separate dynamics (Hartwig,
and to pressure member states to comply with 2002) – has yet to be the subject of detailed
the guidelines, benchmarks and recommenda- analysis. Finally, one EES tool, which as it is
tions it issues to individual member states (de la discussed in the literature might be expected
Porte and Pochet, 2003). It could thus be con- to lead to policy change, is that of public
ceived as an important norm entrepreneur in ‘naming and shaming’. However, while this
the implementation of the OMC (de la Porte, may take place within the process itself,
2002; de la Porte et al., 2001; Goetschy, 1999). Meyer (2003) has recently demonstrated that
However, there have been no empirical tests on media coverage of the EES has decreased since

Journal of European Social Policy 2004 14 (1)

 The European Employment Strategy 73

1997. There are thus notable gaps in the liter- thinking policy (policy principles), and collec-
ature regarding particular dimensions of the tive understandings and identities’ (Jacobsson,
EES and how they might be integrated more 2001a: 3).
fully into existing analyses. Trubek and Mosher (2003) have analysed
the EES according to its ‘learning capabilities’
– i.e the features and instruments – which,
Learning, democracy, participation, they maintain, embody ‘mechanisms for learn-
and the European Social Model ing’. They drew up a list of such mechanisms
from the literature of organizational learning
The bulk of the literature on the EES (and and deliberative democracy. These are:
OMC) is linked to broader questions associ- . . . mechanisms that destabilize existing
ated with the governance of the EU. This understandings, bring together people with
section reviews three of the most important of diverse viewpoints in settings that require
these questions: policy learning, democracy, sustained deliberation about problem-
and the European social model. solving; facilitate erosion of boundaries
between both policy domains and stake-
holders; reconfigure policy networks;
Learning encourage decentralized experimentation;
produce information on innovation; require
For political scientists and sociologists, many
sharing of good practice and experimental
of whom analyse the EES from a multi-level
results; encourage actors to compare their
governance perspective, the strategy and the
results with those of the best performers in
OMC operate theoretically in a completely
any area; and oblige actors collectively to
different way than top-down governance – in
redefine objectives and policies. (Trubek
a more cooperative and participative spirit
and Mosher, 2003: 46–7)
and with the use of different tools that should
lead to policy change through learning. Thus They judge that the EES contains all these ele-
it is argued that the learning process engen- ments, in one degree or another. They identify
dered by one or several OMC instruments the EES’s overall objectives, re-enforced
could lead to changes adapted to national through quantitative benchmarks, as the most
contexts (Biagi, 2000: 159; de Búrca and powerful learning instrument, because defini-
Zeitlin, 2003: 2; de la Porte and Pochet, 2002; tion and measurement of objectives could
Eberlein and Kerwer, 2002: 3; Ferrera et al., destabilize prior understandings of issues and
2000; 2002; Hemerijck, 2001; Jacobsson, thus lead to incremental changes (Trubek and
2001b: 1; Knill and Lenschow, 2003; Mosher, 2003). This has also been suggested
Overdevest, 2002; Scharpf, 2002; Trubek and elsewhere (de la Porte and Pochet, 2002; de la
Mosher, 2003). This focus on learning reflects Porte et al., 2001), but it has been recognized
the fact that the interest in the OMC has that thus far the learning capabilities of the
above all been driven by the ideational dimen- EES have been weak in many instances.
sion, i.e. the possibility that it could lead to Learning can at the same time be conceived
changes in ideas and discourse among as a functional feature of the EES, as well as
national actors. These are mainly derived an important dimension of its output. When
from a sociological institutionalist approach the EES was first launched, it was decided that
and focus on the cognitive effect of the EES it should be evaluated after a five-year period.
(Goetschy, 2003; Jacobsson, 2001a; 2001b; This evaluation process does not support the
Trubek and Mosher, 2001). ‘Effects may thesis of an important learning dimension,
include . . . more subtle impact on national and little evidence of learning processes can be
debates and discourses, changes in ways of found in the national evaluations.3 In fact, the

Journal of European Social Policy 2004 14 (1)

74 de la Porte and Pochet

adoption of the new strategy was driven by for the Improvement of Living and Working
political bargaining rather than by learning Conditions conducted a cross-national survey
from the weaknesses and successes of the last on the participation of social partners.
five years. Without presenting an exhaustive account of
the results, several observations are worth
mentioning. First, in all countries but one
Democracy (Luxembourg), the national action plans are
characterized as governmental, rather than
Theories of deliberative democracy have been jointly-produced documents. This point is
influential in recent debates on governance worth emphasizing, as theoretical accounts of
and democracy in the EU. Two approaches in the OMC characterize its dynamic as bottom-
particular have been associated with specific up. In seven out of fifteen countries, the social
EU processes. The first approach is that of partners have, however, made a direct contri-
deliberative supranationalism, where political bution to the national action plan. Such contri-
deliberation is designed to foster mutual learn- butions were mainly to the adaptability pillar,
ing among experts; here the focus has primari- where the responsibility of the social partners
ly been on the role of comitology committees is strongest. A high level of satisfaction of the
(Joerges, 1999; Joerges and Neyer, 1997). Yet participatory conditions is correlated with a
there is considerable scepticism concerning direct contribution to the NAP in six out of the
this form of deliberation. For example, seven cases, the exception being Denmark. It
Dehousse (forthcoming) argues that ‘in the therefore seems that the level of satisfaction of
eyes of public opinion, cooperation between the social partners increases with the quality –
experts within more or less obscure networks more active – of their participation.
is not necessarily the best form of legitimation Participation of local actors in the EES
. . . Space for debate and mechanisms of process is another emerging area of research
control are thus necessary’. Second, the EES (Jacobsson, forthcoming; Schmid, 2002;
(and the OMC) – especially in terms of partic- Zeitlin, 2002). Recent empirical findings for
ipation, transparency and openness – are also Sweden suggest that local policy making for
being analysed through the theory of directly matters covered by the EES takes place inde-
deliberative polyarchy that stresses the impor- pendently from the EES. In Sweden, ‘local
tance of the participation of different citizens action plans’ (LAPs) are drawn up on the
in a bottom-up logic (Cohen and Sabel, 2003). basis of the political objectives agreed under
The ambition of the latter theoretical perspec- the EES by actors at local level (financed by
tive is normative, and the importance of the the Commission, the actor pushing hardest for
participative dimension of the EES is arguably increasing participation; Pochet, 2003).
overstated, yet does have an important place However, the LAPs are to a great extent devel-
in the EES. oped independently of the NAPs. As put by
In the framework of the EES, the social part- Jacobsson (forthcoming):
ners in the national arena are encouraged to
participate in all stages of the process and are The EES has so far in much developed as a
in particular called upon to take an active role superficial and centralised process in
in the adaptability pillar. Participation is also parallel to the existing structures, instead of
emphasized in the framework of the OMC linking up systematically with these locally
(Telò, 2002). Current research indicates that in and regionally.
practice, participation in the EES has proved to
be uneven, especially among trade unions Recent analyses suggest that there is a move
(Raveaud, 2001 for the French case; Winterton towards greater involvement in the EES, but
and Foden, 2002). The European Foundation that this differs according to country and to

Journal of European Social Policy 2004 14 (1)

 The European Employment Strategy 75

the type of non-state actor. Schelkle (forth- ‘broader contribution . . . to steering the
coming: 12) suggest that government officials economy’. Indeed, the more fundamental parts
are not always keen on involving more actors: of labour market reform, such as wage and
‘If OMC is predominantly concerned with regulatory flexibility, are not part of the strat-
domestic reforms in a situation of deep uncer- egy, and receive more attention in the BEPG.
tainty, participation of non-state actors – and Begg (2003) has argued that the EES is char-
thus a stronger EU leverage – is sometimes but acterized by Third Way type ideas, including
not always appreciated by the government’. equity (see Rubery, 2002) and activation. The
form and effect of activation policies has been
discussed particularly in welfare state literature
European Social Model but also by political actors. While some criti-
cize the notion of activation, others act as
The theme of the European Social Model must spokespersons/advocates of welfare state
be considered in conjunction with the conse- reform (Ferrera et al., 2000; Hemerijck, 2001;
quences of EMU, which shaped both the Scharpf, 2002). From a reform perspective, the
objectives and institutional design of the EES. EES can be seen as an additional instrument
Rather than being seen as a classical spill-over, with which to enhance the social dimension to
however, the EES should be viewed, in the European Union (Ferrera, 2001; Pochet,
Dyson’s words, in terms of ‘pollination, [for] 2002; Rodrigues, 2002). Others, however,
whether the seeds of integration germinate remain sceptical of its real added value to com-
successfully in proximate sectors, like labour pensate the European Social Model for the
markets and budgetary policy, depends on the liberal bias of EU integration (Scharpf, 2002).
fertility of the soil there; in integration, fertil- Among the issues debated regarding the
ity requires a critical mass of actors with the European Social Model is activation’s actual
will and the capacity to act’ (1994: 295). This impact on the employment rate of the Euro-
approach makes explicit the importance of the pean Union and on member states’ employ-
politics of the process. In this respect, the ment policies more generally (Barbier, 2001).
work of van Riel and van der Meer (2002), While the employment rate of the Union has
explaining the emergence of the EES through increased since the launching of the strategy,
advocacy coalitions, is interesting. It suggests this is attributable to many factors. It is virtu-
that the role of certain ideas is supported by ally impossible to single out the influence of
specific groups of actors in the definition of the EES per se. What can be affirmed is that
the EES’s policy content at European level, as most of the pressure to converge towards the
well as the implementation of its different EU’s objectives under the EES – of which acti-
components in member states. vation is an important component – is on
There are some analyses that seek to estab- countries with Continental and Southern
lish the precise nature of the link between European welfare state arrangements, with
EMU and EES (de la Porte and Pochet, 2003; male-breadwinner, female carer model and
Hodson and Maher, 2001; Jenson and Pochet, differentiation of social protection according
forthcoming; Wessels and Linsenmann, 2001). to occupational class, and dominance of
Indeed, the EES is linked to the overarching passive policies (de la Porte, 2002). However,
objective of the European Union to increase its besides the general move from passive to
competitiveness and economic performance. active policies that the EES implies, there are
The EEG is subordinated to the objectives of few specific thematic analyses of the EES (on
the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines (BEPG) entrepreneurship, see Foden and Magnusson,
that define the general economic policy of the 2000). Nonetheless, it appears from the five-
Union. In this respect, Begg (2003: 6) points year evaluation of the EES, confirmed by
out that the EES has not sought to make a Rubery (2002: 550), that ‘. . . in the recent

Journal of European Social Policy 2004 14 (1)

76 de la Porte and Pochet

period by far the most important EU influence understanding and consensus in the face of
on equal opportunities policies has come from political opposition’. It goes without saying
the employment strategy’. that European compromises render the possi-
The EES, where agreement on strategic bility of attaining an effective policy analysis
objectives and benchmarks is above all even more difficult.
decided by consensus, has recently been raised
in political status. It is now synchronized in Notes
terms of timing with the more politically
salient (at least at European level) Broad 1 Proposal submitted by the European University
Economic Policy Guidelines (BEPG). Yet from Institute (Florence) for the European
Commission’s Framework Programme 6
a normative perspective, the implications of Research Funding, Florence, 2003, page 1.
having a social policy built around employ- 2 It is important to point out that the recommen-
ment need to be explored. Some headway has dation tool is not part of the OMC. It exists in
been made in this direction (Visser, 2002). the economic and employment coordination
processes only.
Indeed, some of the most interesting national 3 This was organized around 10 themes, the
studies of the +5 EES assessment adopt this results of which are posted on the website of the
approach (http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/ European Commission [http://www.europa.eu.int/
employment_social/news/2002/may/eval_en. comm/employment_social/news/2002/may/
html). eval_en.html].

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Journal of European Social Policy 2004 14 (1)